From Kasich's Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day resolution: "We remember the lives lost that tragic December morning and we owe all men and women of our military a debt of gratitude that we can never fully repay."

At 7:55 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,200 were wounded when 360 Japanese warplanes descended on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack, according to history.com.

Students at the Dayton Regional STEM School walked out of school Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, in memory of the 17 individuals who died during the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. WILL GARBE / STAFF

— The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio issued an open letter to school administrators ahead of the student protests and walkouts expected across the nation Wednesday after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

The ACLU’s message was clear: We’re watching how schools handle these protests.

The full letter appears at the bottom of this story.

“As students plan walkouts to press for changes in social policy, please bear firmly in mind: The Constitution forbids disciplining students more harshly for politically motivated conduct,” ACLU of Ohio Executive Director J. Bennett Guess wrote. “The ACLU of Ohio may intervene if a student who leaves school as an act of political protest faces more severe punishment because of their political beliefs.”

At schools across the state — including here in southwest Ohio — students have organized walkouts with a variety of intentions, all sparked by the slaughter of 17 people at the Parlkand, Fla., high school.

Some of the walkouts are geared expressly toward more strict gun control, while others are aimed at memorializing the dead in as non-political a manner as possible.

In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,” but also recognized the need to prevent substantial disruption to the educational process.

Earlier this month, the Dayton Daily News used Ohio’s public records law to reveal how area superintendents debated whether or not students should be punished for walkouts.

Troy Superintendent Eric Herman said he would not punish Troy students who participate peacefully in walkouts, instead telling school principals not to physically stop the students and “escort them out if need be — supervise them — and return them into the buildings.”

Other schools decided discipline would need to be enforced should students choose to walk out. Miami Valley Career Technology Center Superintendent Nick Weldy told the Daily News he decided the district would enforce discipline measures.

The ACLU letter encourages school officials to “choose their most appropriate response to student activism.”

“This is why we are asking that, instead of focusing on discipline and punishment, school officials should seize this as a teachable moment by nurturing students’ commitment to social action by removing barriers to their participation,” Guess wrote, later adding, “Public schools are essential in educating young people about democracy, and that includes their role in enacting it.”

Salaries, government spending revealed through I-Team Payroll Project

The I-Team’s Payroll Project includes a searchable online database of 388,643 salaries - and counting - from employees in state government, as well as area counties, school districts, cities, townships, villages and other entities such as libraries. The city of Kettering hired new firefighters last year to bring down the amount of overtime put on firefighters revealed in the Payroll Project. LISA POWELL / STAFF(Lisa Powell)

Lisa Powell

— State and local governments make payroll with public money, which is why this news organization launched its annual I-Team Payroll Project this month to provide the public with details on how government employees are compensated.

The Payroll Project includes a searchable online database of 388,643 salaries — and counting — from employees in state government, as well as area counties, school districts, cities, townships, villages and other local entities such as libraries.

The Payroll Project is assembled using Ohio public records law. This week, March 11-17, is National Sunshine Week, a time to raise awareness of the importance of transparency in government and access to public records.

The database currently has the salaries of public employees who earned at least $50,000 — Ohio’s median household income is $50,674, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It includes state employees and numerous government in our region for the years 2014 through 2016. We are gathering 2017 payroll data and updating the database as information is received.

The Payroll Project does more than provide links to individual salaries. It helps identify trends and makes government accountable for its decisions. Here are some of the findings from the Payroll Project in recent years:

Go to MyDaytonDailyNews.com/data/news/payroll-project for a searchable database of public employee salaries in state government, as well as area counties, school districts, cities, townships, villages and other local entities such as libraries.

Victims of dating violence get new protections in Ohio

This T-shirt was worn at a rally in Newark in May to protest the fatal shootings of three people in Kirkersville by the ex-boyfriend of one of the victims. BARBARA J. PERENIC/THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Columbus — After a 10-year battle in the Ohio Statehouse to give victims of dating violence the chance to get civil protection orders in the courts, Gov. John Kasich is expected to sign House Bill 1 into law.

Ohio and Georgia are the only states that don’t extend protections afforded to victims of domestic violence to victims of dating violence, according to state Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Akron, a primary sponsor of House Bill 1.

Current law defines domestic violence as occurring between spouses, ex-spouses, family members, those living together or parents. It leaves out boyfriends and girlfriends in intimate or dating relationships where the same patterns of domestic abuse and violence often play out.

“It’s happening all the time. It’s just so dangerous. Any way we can intervene and use the power and the strength and the authority of the law to help these women get out of these relationships, we have to do it,” Sykes said. “The sooner, the better because it’ll be easier for them to break those ties and keep them from ending up in a very deadly situation.”

Examples of domestic violence turning deadly are common across Ohio: two Westerville officers were killed in February when responding to a domestic dispute; four people, including the shooter and the Kirkersville police chief, were killed in May 2017 in another domestic dispute; and in August 2017, a woman was sentenced to 25 years in prison for murdering her ex-husband after he sought full custody of their children.

Sykes acknowledges that a piece of paper from a court isn’t 100 percent effective, but she said studies show the orders are followed 75 percent of the time, making them helpful tools in ending cycles of abuse.

When abuse starts

Dating violence can be physical, sexual or emotional: hitting, shoving, choking; unwanted touching or pressure to have sex; being extremely controlling, threatening to harm self or others, stalking or using put downs and insults.

Sykes, who holds a law degree and a master’s in public health, said the earlier a woman can break free from abusive relationships, the better.

Often, abuse starts early. In the 2015 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, almost 12 percent of high school girls reported physical violence and nearly 16 percent reported sexual violence from a dating partner in the previous 12 months.

The effort to extend civil protection orders to victims of dating violence began in 2008 when then state representative Edna Brown, D-Toledo, introduced a bill. The dating violence portion was stripped out of Brown’s bill.

Sykes, the daughter of two Ohio lawmakers, finished law and graduate school, returned to Akron and volunteered at a community legal services agency where she discovered that Ohio lacked protections for victims of dating violence.

When she joined the Ohio House in 2015, she teamed up with Cincinnati Democrat Christie Kuhns to pick up where Brown left off. They conducted a 50-state survey and developed a spreadsheet” with 48 ways to define dating violence, Sykes said.

The 2015 bill passed the House but died in the Senate.

Then Sykes and state Rep. Nathan Manning, R-North Ridgeville, introduced House Bill 1 on Feb. 1, 2017, passing it 28 days later. The Senate passed it this year.

The only public opposition came from the Ohio Public Defender’s office, which said the definition of dating violence was overly broad and offering protection orders to ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends could turn into he said/she said disputes.

“To be perfectly frank, this bill requires judicial officers to sort out the complicated emotional and sexual interactions of two people to determine if those exchanges were romantic or intimate,” said testimony from the public defender’s office.

Civil protection order: It’s a legal document that restrains one party from contacting another party, such as those involved in domestic disputes. Issued by a court after a hearing, it can last up to five years.

Temporary criminal protection order: Issued by a court while a criminal case is in progress. It expires once the case is closed.

Anti-stalking civil protection order: This is an order issued by common pleas or juvenile court against someone convicted of stalking or sexually oriented offenses against an individual. The order can last up to five years.

Juvenile civil protection order: Issued by juvenile court, it is an order that applies only when the parties are minors.

What is dating violence?

Behaviors that include physical, sexual and emotional abuse between individuals in a romantic or intimate relationship. Physical abuse may include hitting, choking, shoving, grabbing, pulling hair. Sexual abuse may include pressuring someone to have sex or forcing them to have unsafe sex, unwanted touching, ignoring pleas to stop sexual advances. Emotional abuses may include being extremely possessive or controlling, stalking or harassing, threatening harm to self or others, using put downs and insults and misusing someone’s social network.

Gov. John Kasich pushes values in last State of the State speech

Westerville — In his eighth and final state of the state address, Ohio Gov. John Kasich delivered an introspective sermon on God, faith and values such as humility, love, compassion and the responsibility to “live a life that is a little bigger than ourselves.”

“We have an opportunity to let these values I’ve spoke of come alive in all of us. It can guide our work and our lives,” Kasich said in a 55-minute address on the campus of Otterbein University in Westerville.

“We don’t have to go and win gold medals. We can do little things that matter,” he said. He also praised those who helped save school children and concert goers during the terror and chaos of shootings in Las Vegas, Parkland, Florida and at Chardon High School in northern, Ohio.

In the speech, Kasich announced two new projects: a new $112-million mental health facility on the grounds of the Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Columbus and the creation of the Jesse Owens State Park and Wildlife Area in eastern Ohio.

In his eighth and final state of the state address, Ohio Gov. John Kasich delivered an introspective sermon on God, faith and values such as humility, love, compassion and the responsibility to “live a life that is a little bigger than ourselves.”

“We have an opportunity to let these values I’ve spoke of come alive in all of us. It can guide our work and our lives,” Kasich said in a 55-minute address on the campus of Otterbein University in Westerville.

“We don’t have to go and win gold medals. We can do little things that matter,” he said. He also praised those who helped save school children and concert goers during the terror and chaos of shootings in Las Vegas, Parkland, Florida and at Chardon High School in northern, Ohio.

In the speech, Kasich announced two new projects: a new $112-million mental health facility on the grounds of the Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Columbus and the creation of the Jesse Owens State Park and Wildlife Area in eastern Ohio.

“I found the speech to be largely aspirational. What he wants for Ohio, but not so much in terms of statistics or milestones, but in the values and character we have as a state,” said state Sen. Bill Beagle, R-Tipp City. “It was a largely personal speech that didn’t just acknowledge his successes, but all the work left to do.”

State Rep. Kyle Koehler, R-Springfield, said he appreciated Kasich’s focus on values. “I hope those same values will cause Gov. Kasich to push for payday lending reform in Ohio. We cannot afford to allow hurting families to be taken advantage of because 650 unlicensed payday lending storefronts operate without a single regulation,” said Koehler, who is sponsoring a bill to place limits on payday lending practices.

State Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Akron, blasted Kasich administration for failing to address college affordability, infant mortality, the decline of the middle class, drug overdoses, and steep budget cuts to local governments. “We are slipping, we are falling behind,” she said.

After falling short in the 2016 GOP presidential primary, Kasich, an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, won’t rule out another run in 2020. For the past two years, he has traveled the nation, appeared regularly on political talk shows and shifted his message as a common-sense moderate.

His record as governor, though, shows he is a conservative with moderate streaks.

He has signed every gun rights expansion bill and almost every abortion bill that crossed his desk. In 2011, he signed into law a measure to gut collective bargaining rights to more than 700,000 public employees — a measure voters soundly rejected that year. Kasich has pushed through more than $5 billion in tax cuts, revamped school grading systems and mandated that all third graders pass reading tests, privatized state prisons and prison cafeteria workers, and outsourced the state’s economic development efforts to a private non-profit.

“In this job, I’ve just done everything I can do. I’ve done my best.We have to run through the tape. Make no mistake about it, we’re not quitting until we turn off the lights because we have so many things to do,” Kasich said.

Republican Mary Taylor, Kasich’s lieutenant governor for the past seven years, responded the speech on Twitter with just four characters: “Huh.”